3. Are
there any other Successors? Example: Your father died leaving
a $100 bank account and you and your
brother are his only Successors. Consequently, you and your brother are each entitled to $50,
half of its proceeds. For your Affidavit to be valid at all, you would
be required to give written notice to your brother of your claim to the $50. Furthermore, if you were willing, and if your brother gave
you written authority to do so, your Affidavit could claim the entire $100:
your $50 plus the $50
on behalf of your brother.

If
you are not aware of any other Successor, then skip the following discussion
and proceed directly to Paragraph 4 below.

If
you are aware of one or more other Successors, are
you willing to claim any property on their behalf?

If
you are not willing to claim any property on their behalf, then mail a
copy of your Small Estate Affidavit +
Death Certificate to each of them, wait 10 days, and
then proceed to Paragraph 4 below.

If
you are willing to claim the property on their behalf, then request
their written authority to do so. If you and all other Successors
are so willing, then have each of them sign a
Declaration under Penalty of Perjury
attached to the Small Estate Affidavit and then proceed to the next paragraph (on the
understanding that you will account to all other Successors within the
period stated in the Declaration under Penalty of Perjury).

4.
Present your Affidavit (with its attached Death Certificateand anyDeclarations under Penalty of Perjury)
to the person in possession of the property claimed.

5.
Mail a copy of
your Affidavit(with attachments), together with Decedent's social security number (RCW
11.62.010(5)), to:

Office of Financial Recovery

Washington Department of Social and Health
Services

PO Box 9501

Olympia, WA 98507-9501

Timing:
After40 days
following Decedent's death, and if there are any other Successors,
after 10 days following notice to them of
your claim.

Note: There is no requirement
limiting the use of the Small Estate Affidavit procedure to a
single document. Therefore, if you are dealing with multiple assets,
then, depending on your circumstances, you may wish to use:

One "omnibus" Small Estate Affidavit
describing all of Decedent's relevant assets and listing all of Decedent's pertinent heirs or
beneficiaries.

A collection of separate Small Estate
Affidavits, one for each of Decedent's relevant assets, listing only
that asset's heirs or beneficiaries. One advantage of doing so is
that the pertinent heirs or beneficiaries would learn only of the asset
they were to receive. One disadvantage of doing so (besides having
to prepare multiple documents) would be that each would require its own
Death Certificate and notice to DSHS.

Some combination of the above.

Upon
presenting your valid Affidavit to anyone in possession of the
property to which you are entitled (eg, a bank or brokerage),
you become entitled to its possession, and its possessor is required
by law to transfer the property to you.

The
Successor is legally entitled to take possession of the property specified
in the Affidavit.RCW
11.62.010(1)

The
possessor of the property is legally required to transfer the property to
the Successor unless the possessor knows any statement in the Affidavit
to be false.
RCW
11.62.010(1)

The
possessor is legally discharged and released to the same extent as if the
transfer had been made to Decedent's Personal Representative.
RCW
11.62.020

The
possessor is not required to see to the application of the property
transferred, to inquire into the truth of any statement made in the Affidavit, or to verify the payment of any estate tax liability.
RCW
11.62.020

This Small Estate Affidavit transfer procedure has merit for its
clearly intended beneficiaries: Successors of a Decedent whose probate
estate does not exceed $100,000. But it can also be used effectively
in a variety of other situations. For example: A Decedent who used a Revocable Living Trust as his/her estate
planning vehicle, but who forgot to transfer to the Trust personal
property that qualifies for this transfer procedure, such as a $50,000
brokerage account, car, boat, etc. This modest transfer procedure,
assuming Decedent had the requisite "pour-over" Will ("all assets at my
death not already in my Trust I give to my Trustee"), could save
Decedent's Trustee at Decedent's death from having to initiate a formal
probate proceeding to get the errant property into the Trust.

Probably the most popular use of a Small Estate Affidavit
is to access a Decedent's bank or securities account. The practical
(as opposed to legal) problem is that banks, brokerages, transfer agents,
and institutions in general are used to transferring such accounts through
a probate proceeding, in which the Personal Representative delivers a copy
of his/her Letters to the institution and requests the
transfer. That's the method that institutions are familiar with, and
they have come to see it as "the proper (and only) procedure" for
making the transfer. Consequently, far too often, when a Successor
presents a Small Estate Affidavit to an institution,
the institution responds "We need Letters to make the
transfer."

How
to respond? In a word, be persistent and play "broken record" (ie,
repeat items 2 through 7 below over and over to the agent):

Include the copies in your written request or hand the copies to the agent
and politely ask the agent to read them, especially RCW 11.62.010(1).

If
you are dealing with a securities transfer agent, politely ask the agent
to read RCW 11.62.010(3).

Politely inform the agent that your use of a Small Estate Affidavit complies with Washington law, and that Washington law
does not require either a probate proceeding or the delivery of
Letters for the transfer to be made.

If
further resistance is met, politely inform the agent that if the
institution refuses to make the transfer, Washington law allows you to
bring an action in Court against the institution to compel the transfer
and for it to reimburse you for your attorney's fees and costs to obtain a
Court Order to Compel the Transfer.

If
further resistance is met, ask to speak to their manager.

If
further resistance is met, ask to speak to their legal department.

Be
forewarned, so that you may properly prepare. In your author's
experience, the grand champions of resistance to Small Estate Affidavits are:

Downtown branches of large banks (eg, Bank of America, US Bank,
WaMu, etc.), and

The
Court Clerk's office will accept a Small Estate Affidavit for
filing with the Court for a filing fee of $20. It is unclear what
advantage or use one gains by such filing.

Sidebar: The
Northwest Justice Project has an especially thorough and useful
portion of its website dedicated to Transfers of Personal Property by
Affidavit, which you may wish to visit to gain additional perspective on
this process.